


neither here nor there

by FreshBrains



Series: Femslash 100 Drabble tag 5: Orphan Black [22]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Community: femslash100, F/F, Introspection, Memories, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:55:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreshBrains/pseuds/FreshBrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alison was good at compartmentalizing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	neither here nor there

**Author's Note:**

> For the femslash100 drabble tag 5 prompt: Alison/Beth - memories.

Alison was good at compartmentalizing.  Family time here, sister time there.  Motherhood here, womanhood there.  Crafts here, guns there.  It was an efficient way to live.

But Beth bled into all of those carefully-composed compartments.  The longer she was gone, the more the lines blurred, and it scared Alison.

*

Beth was her first family outside of Donnie and the kids that Alison actually felt comfortable in.  Alison never got along with her parents or her older sister, but once Beth was there, it was like she had everything she needed—a shoulder to cry on, a hand to old.

“I’ll always be your family,” Beth would say, stroking Alison’s hair.  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

*

Beth started taking more pills and Alison started seeing her as a broken thing, a fragile thing that needed to be taken care of.  She worried about how much she enjoyed babying Beth, washing her up and putting her to bed, but Alison liked feeling _useful_ , needed.  One day her kids would grow up and take care of themselves, but she’d always have Beth.

*

Beth was the one who taught her how to shoot a gun, but she was also the one who taught Alison how to cross-stitch.  Nobody knew that except Alison, and she’d take it to the grave.

*

There was nobody who really _knew_ Alison—not Donnie, not her sisters, not her kids or the neighborhood friends.  No one except Beth, who was still everywhere, always there.

But Beth was dead.


End file.
